All That We See or Seem
by lizzieonawhim
Summary: "...is but a dream within a dream." It's been a week since the events of Dream a Little Dream, and Artemis has a hard time telling what's real and what's not.


Possible trigger warning for dissociation.

I know the fact that I have now written two things for this concept makes it seem like this is My Fix-It, but it's really not. My brain just wouldn't leave me alone about this little thing. I just kept thinking about the events of Dream a Little Dream, and it seemed likely to me that Artemis would have some problems with dissociation after something like that. Then GeekDad left a comment on DaLD that made me remember everything I used to like about it (I have some issues with it now), and, well, here we are. So that thing I wrote on my ffdotnet profile about how comments/reviews feed and sustain me and result in the creation of more fic? Yyyeah, that's actually true. :)

Fun fact: Artemis's experience of dissociation is actually partially based on mine. My solution was always to keep living my life as if it was real and wait it out. I didn't know about the what do you see/hear/feel thing until I googled dissociation for this fic, but apparently that's actually a thing. So, y'know. If you have problems with dissociation, maybe that's something you can try.

Many thanks to my beta, TheRantDragon, who helped me polish it up a little, and to GeekDad, whose comment led directly to the creation of this work!

* * *

Artemis woke in the dead of night to find herself sprawled on top of Wally as he sprawled across their bed. They'd slept that way a thousand times before - Wally was the kind of sleeper who took up the whole bed, and Artemis had long since gotten fed up fighting him for space - but something about it felt strange tonight. Her eyes blinked open blearily; she watched her eyelashes rise and fall as if from a thousand miles away. A moment ago, she'd been deep underground in a prison cell, locked with Psimon in a battle of wills she was fated to lose. Hadn't she?

No, Artemis remembered. She had escaped. Wally had come, and she had escaped with him.

But Wally was dead.

Wasn't he?

Artemis lifted her head and watched her fingers trace their way down her sleeping boyfriend's bare chest, seemingly of their own volition. The sensory feedback through her fingertips felt secondhand, as if it should have been going to someone else. If this was a dream, Psimon was losing his touch. All the same, she found herself carefully lifting her torso off of Wally's and slipping off the bed before she was fully aware of having chosen to do so. Silently, she ghosted across their bedroom to stand in front of the window, staring out through the blinds at the lamplit street. The chill of northern California raised goosebumps on her arms; Artemis lifted her hands to rub them more out of a sense of obligation than anything else. Her feet felt cold against the hardwood, but in a distant way that was hard to take seriously.

It didn't feel real. She couldn't decide if that was a good thing or not.

The covers on the bed rustled behind her as Wally stirred. "Nnngh... babe? What time is it?" Artemis didn't answer. If her hallucinations were caused by someone else, did answering their questions still count as talking to herself? "Did you have another dream?" His voice was rough with sleep in a way that Artemis had heard a million times before. She had never managed to adjust to the idea of never hearing it again, but at the same time, the cold reality of it had seemed inescapable.

"Did I?" Her voice came out in a hoarse whisper. Wally heaved a weary sigh; Artemis heard his bare feet hit the floor, then come padding over to the window. A moment later, his arms closed around her, one around her waist while the other crossed over her chest to grasp her opposite shoulder. Artemis felt her hand come up to curl around his forearm automatically.

"Artemis," Wally sighed in her ear; she shivered at the sound. "Come back to me, babe."

"How do I know this is real?"

"It is, I swear." He bent his head to press a kiss into the crook of her neck.

"It doesn't feel real."

"I know, babe. I know." He squeezed gently; Artemis gripped his forearm a little tighter, hoping to anchor herself. "Tell me what you see." The words were familiar by now; they had done this several times in the past week since coming home.

"The window. The blinds. Streetlights, sidewalk, trees."

"Good, good. What else?"

Artemis blinked and focused, squinting to see through the blinds. "Bushes, grass, the car in the driveway, the house next door. They have a light on downstairs."

"Weirdos," Wally murmured. "Don't they know it's almost 2AM?" Artemis smiled a little. "What do you hear?"

She listened. "The wind in the trees. That's still weird." Wally nodded; he knew that after growing up in the slums of Gotham, Artemis found it a little surreal to wake to the sound of birdsong in the morning rather than sirens and gunshots. "Brucely snoring. The appliances." She paused and smirked. "Your big mouth."

"Ouch, babe." She heard the answering smirk in his voice. "Anything else?" She paused, then shook her head. "Okay, then, what do you feel?"

"Cold," Artemis answered automatically.

Wally chuckled. "Well, it was warmer in bed, but someone had to come out and brood in front of the window."

"What Psimon did to me, it - it felt so real," Artemis told him. "I never noticed the things that didn't add up because everything was so convincing. The sights, the sounds..."

"What kinds of things didn't add up?"

Artemis furrowed her brow. "The layout of the compound. How I got out of my cell. The fights. Just... not knowing exactly how I'd gotten where I was, and taking it for granted."

"Do you know how you got to where you are now?" Artemis nodded. "Tell me." Feeling a little foolish, she told Wally all about escaping from her cell, finding him, and fighting their way out together, then returning to the Watchtower in the bioship with M'gann. She recounted their reunion with the rest of the team, how Kaldur had given them both a stern talking-to for recklessness, how their stoic leader's shoulders had slumped with relief just a teeny bit at the sight of them coming off the bioship. She told him all about having her head examined by M'gann to make sure Psimon hadn't implanted any secret programming, then going back to have it examined again when she started dissociating. The psychiatric evaluation. The first of the mandatory therapy sessions she'd been assigned, which had been on Tuesday. Grocery shopping. Cooking. Eating. Doing laundry. By the time she reached the point where she and Wally had collapsed into bed that night after a long day of putting their lives back together, her voice was hoarse and her eyelids were heavy.

"Feel better?" Wally asked when she trailed off.

"Mmm. Yeah, I guess. Psimon never had this kind of continuity." Artemis turned in Wally's arms to face him, looping her arms around his neck with a sigh. "I missed you so much."

"I know, babe."

"I don't think I could stand losing you again."

Artemis felt Wally swallow. "Well, you're not going to. At least not tonight. Okay babe? You with me now?" She let out another long, full sigh and nodded against his freckled chest. "Good. Stay with me. I need you here, Artemis. I need all of you right here with me."

A lump rose in her throat. "I need you too, Wally," Artemis told him, voice wobbling.

"You've got me babe. I'm right here." He pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead. "You ready to go back to bed?" Artemis nodded. Wally scooped her up; a moment later, he set her down gently on the white cotton sheets, then climbed in after her and pulled the covers over both of them. It took them a moment to get settled, but soon enough, Artemis found herself snuggled up against Wally's warm, solid form. This time, the touch of his skin against hers felt vivid enough to break through the fog inside her head. A shudder went through her as her body adjusted to the change in temperature; when it was gone, she felt much warmer.

"You good, babe?" Wally asked. Artemis nodded. "Okay. Good night, Artemis."

"I love you, Wally," the archer mumbled sleepily.

"I love you too, Artemis. God, I love you so much." Too tired to respond, Artemis pressed a kiss to Wally's collarbone. Then, with one last silent prayer to whatever was listening that this would all still be here in the morning, she drifted off to sleep.


End file.
